


Tumblr Drabbles and Ficlets

by sam_ptarmigan



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Bodyswap, Caretaking, Drabble Collection, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Parent-Child Relationship, Sharing a Bed, Sibling Incest, Siblings, Young Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-01-24 00:58:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 5,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1585826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sam_ptarmigan/pseuds/sam_ptarmigan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of stray drabbles and ficlets written for prompts on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Table of Contents

1\. Table of Contents  
2\. December 30, 2013: Dwalin/Thorin, awkward baby dwarves holding hands, Rated General  
3\. May 6, 2014: Balin & Dwalin, bodyswap, Rated Teen  
4\. May 8, 2014: Dwalin/Nori, Balin/Dori, bodyswap, Rated Teen  
5\. May 8, 2014: Balin/Dori, bodyswap, Rated Mature  
6\. May 11, 2014, Dáin & Dori, forced to share a bed, Rated Teen 7\. May 18, 2014: Thorin & Dwalin, bodyswap, Rated General  
8\. May 29, 2014: Balin/Thorin, huddling for warmth, Rated General  
9\. June 6, 2014: Dáin/Dori, old injuries and reputations to maintain, Rated Teen  
10\. June 19, 2014: Balin/Dwalin, "Can we pretend I didn’t just say that?", Rated Teen  
11\. June 21, 2014: Balin & Dwalin, "You forgot to say the magic word," Rated General  
12\. October 5, 2014: Dwalin & his mother, "Dwalin and his mummy + bread," Rated General 


	2. Dwalin/Thorin, Holdings Hands, General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written as an art prompt for [ladynorthstar](http://ladynorthstar.tumblr.com), who created [this lovely illustration](http://ladynorthstar.tumblr.com/post/71649563704/dworin-challenge-pict-for-the-fanfiction-sam).

A warrior was meant to be fearless. 

Dwalin had not yet been to battle, but he was certain that not even a horde of orcs could make his heart pound and his mouth run dry like the empty tower-top did, or the knowledge that they had come up here to be alone.

The night was warm and full of silver stars and golden fire-flies. It was pretty, Dwalin supposed, if you liked that sort of thing. Thorin certainly seemed content to gaze up at the display and sit in silence as they passed between them a pipe (made in secret by Thorin) packed with a scant pinch of pipe-weed (“borrowed” from Balin).

Dwalin’s attention, however, was fixed solely on Thorin’s hand, which lay barely half an inch away from his own. Tempting him. Calling him a coward.

He took a deep, steadying breath and then slowly extended his little finger until it touched Thorin’s. Then he froze, his face hot, waiting. 

Thorin didn’t pull away. He sat still, looking up at the sky, and even in the darkness Dwalin could see that his cheeks were likewise flushed. Then Thorin set down the pipe, and the motion half-disguised a wiggle that brought them closer together. Dwalin seized his chance and in a burst of courage laid his hand fully atop Thorin’s, damp palm and all.

Warm, soft skin. Thorin’s shoulder against his own. Dwalin felt a little like he might be sick, but in a good way. He swallowed hard and thought he heard Thorin do the same. 

“It’s a nice night,” Thorin said stiltedly, his voice breaking slightly.

Dwalin panicked for an instant and then remembered how to speak.

“Aye,” he said, grinning up at the stars like a fool, or a conquering hero. “It is.”


	3. Balin & Dwalin, Bodyswap, Teen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for a [Tropes Meme](http://sam-ptarmigan.tumblr.com/post/84939228831/dragging-this-over-from-livejournal) "bodyswap" prompt.

**Balin:**

His first mistake was taking any interest in woodland ruins. To wit: stepping off the path to brush a little moss away from a crumbling archway carved with elvish lettering.

His second mistake was, after some hasty translation, seeing wisdom in Dwalin’s suggestion that they lie low to spare themselves the embarrassment until the effects of the spell wore off.

His third mistake was trying to navigate the stairs.

"This isn’t funny!" he snapped at his howling brother as he clung to the railing for dear life, wobbling on unreasonably long legs and trying very hard not to look down.

 

**Dwalin:**

The worst part about spending a day in his brother’s body wasn’t losing six inches of stature. That felt strange, aye, but no different from wielding somebody else’s axes: a shorter reach, a lower centre of gravity.

It wasn’t the persistent, worrying tension in his brother’s shoulders. It wasn’t the distracting ache in a knee that had taken a bashing years before.

No, the worst part was when he went to take a piss and paused, looking down with a measuring eye…only to discover that he had not in fact suffered a loss of inches everywhere.

"Oh, come on!"


	4. Dwalin/Nori, Balin/Dori, Bodyswap, Teen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for a [Tropes Meme](http://sam-ptarmigan.tumblr.com/post/84939228831/dragging-this-over-from-livejournal) "bodyswap" prompt.

It was probably for the best that Dori seemed to believe the cure for ensorcellment was staying in bed with a cold compress. Dwalin was back in town, and the last thing Nori needed was Dori pitching a fit over having his arse grabbed in the street by a member of the Mountain Guard. 

Unfortunately, as Nori was currently in possession of Dori’s body and vice versa, he wasn’t getting his arse grabbed either.

He took a drink of ale and looked ruefully over his shoulder. To his surprise, one of the sons of Fundin was staring at him—and it wasn’t Dwalin. 

Balin’s gaze dropped so quickly and casually that Nori almost thought he had imagined it. He hadn’t, though. It came back in the reflection of the shield hanging over the fireplace. Little glances, nothing obvious,

Nori stifled a grin. So that was the way of it? Funny, Dori hadn’t mentioned any longing looks all those times he had sighed over what a witty, respectable fellow that lovely Mr. Balin was. 

He finished his ale and crossed the tavern floor, smiling as Balin’s attention flicked over to him. On his own face, it might have been the sort of grin a fox wore in the henhouse, but with Dori’s plump, dimpled cheeks he knew it was the smile that made matrons sigh. As he passed the pair’s table, putting Dori’s hips to good use, he slipped a handkerchief from his pocket and let it flutter to the floor at Balin’s feet.

'Lovely Mr. Balin' was surely mannerly enough to wait until tomorrow to come calling, at which point Nori planned to be back in his own body and making up for lost groping with Dwalin.

No one could say that he never did anything nice for his brother.


	5. Balin/Dori, Bodyswap, Mature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for a [Tropes Meme](http://sam-ptarmigan.tumblr.com/post/84939228831/dragging-this-over-from-livejournal) "bodyswap" prompt.

For all his faults, Balin was an honourable dwarf. He and Dori had arrived at a sensible set of rules to govern their behaviour for the course of their little predicament, and he had no intention of deviating from them.

So it was that when he had to bathe, he set out the soap, hair oil, and comb that had been pressed upon him, and he kept his gaze firmly upon the wall as he undressed and slipped into the water.

He had in fact seen Dori’s naked body before and was well aware of its appeal. It was one thing, however, to have a casual look in the sauna, and another thing entirely to _feel_ the heavy spill of soft silver hair over bare shoulders and the stirring of a very pretty and surprisingly perky endowment.

Firming his jaw, Balin lathered up briskly and forbad his hands to linger.


	6. Dain/Dori, Sharing a Bed, Teen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for a [Tropes Meme](http://sam-ptarmigan.tumblr.com/post/84939228831/dragging-this-over-from-livejournal) "forced to share a bed" prompt.

There were few happy tales to be told about the march to Khazad-dûm, but to Dori’s dismay, Dáin found no end of mirth relating the events of their first meeting.

"This one here took one look at me and told me I was up past my bedtime!"

"I did no such thing!" Dori would protest, amidst roars of laughter in the hall, but to be honest it was so long ago that he could not remember if he had.  
What he did remember were the crowds and the noise and the mess of the camp, and the grumbling of those settled folk for whom such a life was only temporary hardship. He remembered the rations, and the resulting ache in his jaw from chewing cram and burns on his tongue from the salted meat. He remembered a handsome boy, younger than him, hardly bearded, looking glumly about for a place to sleep in the crush of bedrolls and cook fires.

_"Are you even old enough to be here?"_ Dori might have asked. Or maybe, scandalized, _"You’re not coming all the way to Khazad-dûm, are you?"_ —hoping that the little fellow’s father, whoever he was, only meant to bring him along for a portion of the journey.

_"I’ve come to fight,"_ the boy insisted, his half bare chin sticking out stubbornly.

Dori could say that pity moved him to offer up his extra blanket when the boy admitted he’d lost his place in his father’s company for lagging behind, but in truth, there was some small comfort in bedding down with someone. It didn’t occur to him that the boy might be anyone of import, let alone heir to the Iron Hills and future King Under the Mountain. He only knew that young Dáin settled gladly into the neat arrangement of blankets and allowed himself to be tucked in with minimal fussing.

He had thought of Nori that night, missing his brother terribly and grateful beyond reason that he wasn’t here, and though he had woken up in the morning to find a very unbrotherly little something poking into his thigh, his lingering affection extended to making young Dáin a cup of dandelion tea before sending him off.

"Best night’s sleep of the journey," Dáin inevitably declared with a wink, some hint of that boy still lurking beneath an impressive beard and impressive scars.

Dori, inevitably, had to smile.


	7. Thorin & Dwalin, Bodyswap, General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for a [Tropes Meme](http://sam-ptarmigan.tumblr.com/post/84939228831/dragging-this-over-from-livejournal) "bodyswap" prompt.

"I wish…"

Thorin hesitated. He wasn’t supposed to be at the wishing well by himself, and especially not at night. It was very dark down here, save for the single moonbeam that shone down the air shaft all the way from the top of the mountain, making the water glow like silver. In the distance, he could still hear the drumming and ale-laughter of the grown-ups’ party.

He rubbed his eyes, sorry now that he had evaded his nurse. He was going to be in trouble for getting honey all over his good coat, but putting it off only meant that there had been no tucking-in for him.

You couldn’t waste a wish on a bath or a kiss from your mother. In fact, it seemed to Thorin that you weren’t supposed to wish for anything when your grandfather was the king. At that moment, however, he wished he was Dwalin—who had been allowed to go home after dinner, before the music got too loud and the grown-ups got too boisterous. Dwalin didn’t have to sit still for hours and hours, because he wasn’t a prince. Dwalin had been allowed to wear his regular nice clothes instead of an itchy shirt with a collar that choked you. Dwalin had been allowed to run around the hall until he was tired and then got carried out, yawning, over Mister Fundin’s shoulder.

Thorin liked Mister Fundin, and he liked Mistress Birna too. They smiled a lot, and sometimes Mister Fundin grabbed Mistress Birna around the waist and lifted her off her feet, and she would swat at him and laugh. Balin was just as nice, when he wasn’t getting exasperated. Dwalin was lucky, not being the eldest. He didn’t have to be an example to everyone, and he didn’t get pestered by a little brother and sister who loved each other best. It would be nice to have a big brother like Balin who could teach you interesting things and keep secrets instead of tattling, like when he and Dwalin had got into the treacle pot. 

"I wish…" he said, and yawned, thinking that it would be nicer to be Dwalin than himself, if only for a day—at least until he was done being in trouble for ruining his coat.

His eyes shut slowly. His chin drooped down towards his chest. His breathing grew deeper. 

"Breakfast!"

When he woke up, he was buried in a pile of bedclothes and the tantalizing smell of bacon hung salty in the air. He frowned, burrowing sleepily into a soft fur blanket. You usually couldn’t smell anything in the kitchens from his bedroom. 

"Breakfast!" the voice called again. It was Balin. That was odd.

Thorin squirmed, trying to find his way out of the bedclothes. His head poked free as a door opened. 

"Still in bed?" Balin asked. "I suppose I’ll just have to eat your share of the bacon…"

This wasn’t his bedroom. It was Dwalin’s bedroom. Dwalin’s bed. He looked around in confusion. 

Balin’s teasing expression faded. “Are you feeling all right, Dwalin?”

Thorin looked down at ‘his’ hands with a growing tickle of unease in his belly. He touched ‘his’ hair. ‘His’ nose. ‘His’ beard.

Forget his coat, he was going to be in _so_ much trouble.


	8. Balin/Thorin, Huddling for Warmth, General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for a [Tropes Meme](http://sam-ptarmigan.tumblr.com/post/84939228831/dragging-this-over-from-livejournal) "huddling for warmth" prompt.

It would have been more merciful had the storm come out of nowhere, but the bitter wind and grey clouds stalked them south for hours before the snow began to fall.

"We should go to ground," Balin said, eyeing the sky mistrustfully. They had parted ways that morning with the caravan that had hired them and had made good time through the hills, but it would be another two days’ journeying before they would catch up with the Erebor camp, or else a foolhardy venture back the way they had come, into the gathering weather.

Thorin obviously heard him. He glanced at Balin and then looked up with a grimness that was becoming far too at home on his youthful face. Yet he kept walking, and Balin—having chided him enough over the last three days—held his tongue and followed.

In an hour, it was storming in earnest. Wet snow flew at them, amassing quickly on the ground and clinging to clothing and beards. The wind keened, pushing them forward and biting at their backs.

"Thorin!" Balin shouted over the gale, but he was not heeded.

"We can make it to the road," Thorin insisted.

With the sky a pale void above and the landscape disappearing beneath a coat of white, Balin was already uncertain whether they were heading in the right direction.

They walked quickly, hunched over and determined, but they could not outpace the storm. When the snow falling from the sky was joined by the snow blown from the earth, he nearly lost sight of Thorin in the squall of white, and he knew enough was enough. He staggered forward, having to reach out twice before managing to snag Thorin by the back of his coat. Thorin shouted something that was lost to the wind, but Balin ignored him. Dragging and stomping his feet by turn, thwarted by the muffling snow, he sought out the path of caverns beneath the earth until by luck he stumbled upon a burrow large enough to shelter them both—if barely.

It had the look of a bear’s den when he peered in. Balin’s nose was too frozen to judge for absolute certain, but there did not seem to be any signs of recent habitation. He crawled inside, hauling Thorin with him. Darkness and blessed warmth enveloped them. His ears rang in the sudden absence of the wind, and he wished nothing more than to collapse and let the feeling return to his legs, but he knew that if he hesitated, he might lose the strength to move at all. He struggled to free Thorin’s pack and used it to block the entrance to the burrow. His numb fingers pulled at the buckles and string holding his bedroll together, and he wrangled the blankets loose.

Worry dawned when Thorin made no attempt to move away from his clumsy elbows.

"Are you all right?"

Thorin was shivering worse than he was, his teeth clacking together like rattling dice.

"Are your feet wet?" Balin pressed.

A faint sound that might have been a ‘no’ was not enough to dissuade him from checking for himself. He pulled off his gloves and felt under Thorin’s coat and beneath the top of one boot. The snow that had covered them both was rapidly melting, and he could feel the damp seeping down through the wool and linen.

"I’m f-f-f—" Thorin groaned, resisting between violent shudders as Balin began to undress him.

"Frozen?" Balin asked. "Aye, to the bone."

Naked in a burrow with his younger brother’s best friend was not precisely how Balin had expected to find himself today, but the difficulty he was having taking off his own clothes spoke to the necessity. His fingers fumbled clumsily with buttons and ties, and his limbs felt leaden as he peeled himself out of his layers.

"I’m f-f- _fine_ ,” Thorin insisted wretchedly.

Balin pulled their wet socks off, and with one last summoning of strength gathered the blankets up and rolled himself and Thorin over twice to bundle them up. Thorin hissed as his back pressed against Balin’s chest, and Balin closed his eyes in momentary agony as sensation tingled back to his frozen extremities in pins and needles. His hands found Thorin’s and rubbed them briskly.

They lay together for a long while, thawing slowly. Thorin’s teeth ceased their chattering, and in time his shivering eased to small tremors. His breathing steadied, and Balin could sense the moment he came back to himself enough to be embarrassed by their predicament. Thorin’s shoulders went rigid. His back straightened. He tried to put an inch or two between them, which in the confines of the blankets only had the effect of making him squirm.

Squirming was not a helpful addition to the situation.

Balin tightened his arm around Thorin’s middle. “Pride can wait for dry boots.”

"Pride?" Thorin asked sharply.

"Yes, pride," Balin said. "The thing that has been stiffening your neck all week."

"I’m not proud,” Thorin replied.

Balin, who had learned to never start an argument with no clothes on, said nothing.

Several moments passed in silence, and then Thorin abruptly spat: “He called you _little man_.”

Their short-term employer, a Man in the grain business, had indeed been overly fond of referring to him thusly.

Balin shrugged. “He called you worse.”

"I don’t care what he called me," Thorin said.

"Then why should I?" Balin asked, aiming for a lightness that his tongue could not quite deliver.

Thorin tensed further, as unyielding as stone in Balin’s grasp.

"I wanted to kill him," he said under his breath. "I wanted to tear his throat out for speaking to you like that."

Balin blinked, taken aback by Thorin’s vehemence.

"There was no harm done…"

The assurance seemed to be of little comfort. Thorin crossed his arms tightly. Two sentences were more than Balin had got out of him at any point over the last several days—in weeks or months perhaps—but here in the darkness, the words tumbled forth.

"You used to speak the law. You shouldn’t have to do this. I thought I could bear watching it, but I cannot—"

Balin hushed him before he could start sounding too much like Thráin. “We’re all doing what we must.”

"You _smiled_ at him. He insulted you, and you _smiled_ at him.”

Balin sighed. The corners of his mouth reflexively lifted in the humourless show of peace he was becoming accustomed to wearing. “It made the journey pass more quickly.”

Outside the burrow, the wind’s moaning turned to shrieks. The cold crept in, knife-sharp, and Balin felt Thorin shiver hard once again.

"Turn over," he said with as much dispassion as he could muster. "Your front needs warming up."

Thorin didn’t move.

Balin jostled him. “Come on, now. If you don’t move, I’ll have to assume you cannot and carry you home.”

That was the wrong word, ‘home’. Thorin flinched.

He would have let it lie, but after the space of several uncertain breaths, Thorin said, misery clear:

"I used to wish for this. To go travelling. I was going to ask my grandfather to send me with you the next time you went to the Iron Hills. I thought it would be an adventure."

Balin was silent. It would be far too trite to say that travel was a different creature entirely when one had a home to return to. For an instant—a flicker of memory—he let himself think of warm fires and good ale, and of the quiet that could only be found deep underground. But it brought too much heartsickness to be sustained.

"I used to think that you would take me to bed someday," Thorin said, so softly and bleakly that Balin scarcely heard him, and laughed. It was a short, rough sound.

"Ah," Balin said. Then, with great care, he added: "I could. If you wanted me to."

Thorin relaxed against him, if only slightly. “It wouldn’t be the same.”

"No," Balin agreed. Just as travelling together was not the same. Nothing was as it should be, or as they had thought it would be only a year ago. "Although I daresay it would be different from not going to bed with each other at all."

Thorin did not reply. He lay where he was for a minute or two, and then, with difficulty, wiggled onto his other side.

"I would have proven myself to you," he murmured, pressing his face into Balin’s beard.

Balin stroked his hair and thought of the lad who had once been: his brother’s little friend, gentle-mannered and obedient. Lessened he himself might be in Thorin’s eyes, a hire-sword instead of a rhetor, the sport of Men, but in truth he could find more to admire in the young prince forged in dragon fire than the ghost that had been left behind in Erebor.

"Ask me when we aren’t half-frozen," he said, and though it was no pretty speech, no vow, he felt Thorin ease in his arms nonetheless.

It would, perhaps, be enough to keep them warm for now.


	9. Dáin/Dori, Caretaking, Teen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written as a get-well drabble.

Dori had an unnerving knack for telling when his leg was acting up.

"I’m fine," Dáin blustered, trying ineffectually to swat him away.

It was to no avail.

"You’re not fine. It’s raining up there. You’re always a sourpuss when it rains."

He had the better part of a lifetime’s practice at not overtly favouring his intact leg when the other one pained him. Announcing your weaknesses only served your enemies with a personal invitation to a dirty fight. Well. Enemies he could handle. A fussing consort was harder to keep at bay. He put up a struggle but was somehow overpowered and hauled first to his bedchamber (“Dori…”) and then into a hot bath (“ _Dori_ …”) and finally into bed (“Dori!”).

"You’re not meeting with anyone today," Dori said firmly, piling the bed high with pillows and blankets and hot water contraptions, and conjuring a bowl of chicken soup from who knew where.

"I have a reputation," he attempted to explain, but to his horror, Dori was already marching off to have a word with his advisors.

The doors shut. Dáin lay tense upon his mountain of bedding. There was a low murmur of words, too quiet to be made out, and then Dori came back in. No sooner had the doors shut again than he heard laughter in the corridor. Not disdainful laughter—he knew well the sound of that—but a very particular, admiring sort of laughter usually accompanied by the nudging of elbows.

"What did you tell them?" he asked, baffled, as Dori joined him on the bed and began diligently massaging his thigh.

"The truth," Dori said. He paused for an instant, glancing at Dáin from the mischievous corner of his eye. "That I’m not letting you out of bed today."

Perhaps his reputation would be just fine.


	10. Balin/Dwalin, "Can we pretend I didn’t just say that?", Teen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for a [dialogue meme](http://sam-ptarmigan.tumblr.com/post/89077665066/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-line-of-dialogue-and-ill-write). Prompt: "Can we pretend I didn’t just say that?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains an incestuous relationship between two adult brothers.

When a long moment passed without a response, Dwalin turned coward.

"Can we pretend I didn’t just say that?"

"Of course," Balin said evenly. Neither too quickly, as if it were a relief, nor too reluctantly, as if it were a regret.

Dwalin rolled over, his ears hot, and stared up at the ceiling as he stifled his embarrassment. He didn’t even have the excuse of being drunk. It was mid-morning, and they were lounging in Balin’s room with a bit of mild cider. The nip in the air discouraged wandering too far from the fire, and while Balin seemed content to be idle for the day, Dwalin’s restless bones and general horniness had got the better of him.

"Some brothers do," he felt the need to add, in his own defence.

"Aye," Balin said, once again neither quickly nor slowly. "Some brothers do."

Dwalin stole a look at him. Balin sat with his wax tablet balanced on his knee. His stylus was moving, but as far as Dwalin could see, he was only tracing something he’d already written.

After a moment, just to be certain, Dwalin said: “We don’t.”

Balin raised one eyebrow. “I think I’d have noticed if we had.”

Dwalin rolled his eyes and kicked him—not very hard. Balin snorted and caught him by the ankle. Dwalin subsided, but Balin’s hand lingered, resting lightly atop his foot. Dwalin fidgeted, a warm feeling tickling the inside of his belly. Balin’s touch was a half-familiar, half-exciting thing. They weren’t close enough in age to have grown up as bosom companions, nor so far apart that Balin had made a pet of him. Only now, with Dwalin grown and half a head taller than his brother at that, was the awkward gap beginning to close.

Curiosity bolstered his courage. “What if I did ask?”

This time he watched Balin’s face. There was a definite glimmer of interest, though his brother seemed to give the question serious consideration.

"I suppose," Balin said carefully, "I would ask why you wanted to."

Dwalin hoped he wasn’t going to be made to compose a formal speech on the subject. He sought three good arguments nonetheless. “It’s something to do. We have the time. It would feel good.”

Balin huffed a laugh. “I cannot fault your logic.”

"Aye, I’m a simple creature," Dwalin agreed, grinning.

Balin patted his ankle. He then made to withdraw his hand, but Dwalin quickly pinned it under his foot and trapped him.

"Brat," Balin chided fondly. "Define your terms, then."

Dwalin could feel the heat rising in his face again, but he went ahead and mimed what he did alone.

"Anything else?" Balin asked.

Dwalin shrugged. “Kissing?”

Surprise flickered across Balin’s face. Beneath the ball of Dwalin’s foot, his fingers twitched.

"If you wanted," Dwalin clarified, although he didn’t see what was wrong with kissing. He hadn’t done anything else with company, but he’d had a few kisses and had liked them very much.

"What I want is a moot point," Balin said. "I believe we’re still pretending you haven’t asked."

"I’m asking," Dwalin said.

"Are you certain?"

Dwalin sat up. “I’m certain I’m asking.”

"Well, then," Balin said, setting aside his tablet and smiling in a way that seemed to promise an interesting afternoon. "Yes. But only because you asked."


	11. Balin & Dwalin, "You forgot to say the magic word," General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for a [dialogue meme](http://sam-ptarmigan.tumblr.com/post/89077665066/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-line-of-dialogue-and-ill-write). Prompt: "You forgot to say the magic word."

The first time he ever knocked Balin down wasn’t in the training yard, but in the kitchen.

"Give me one!" He snatched at the plate of custard tarts in Balin’s hands, only to be thwarted when they were whisked out of his reach.

"Ah-ah," Balin said, holding the plate above his head and easily sidestepping Dwalin’s advance. "You forgot to say the magic word."

“ _Now_.” He jumped for the plate, but Balin dodged him.

It always went the same way. Dwalin would push and shove and growl, and Balin would pay him no more mind than he would a pesky flea before finally giving in with a laugh. It _always_ went the same way, ever since Dwalin could remember. Until that day, when he put all of his strength into his shoulder and charged at the immovable mountain that was his elder brother—

—only to have the mountain move.

Down went Balin with an awful cry of surprise. Up went the tarts, tumbling end over end in the air until Balin caught the plate and the pastries upon it.

Dwalin stared at him in mute shock.

"Oh, aye," Balin said, getting back to his feet. "Don’t help me up."

"I pushed you over," Dwalin said stupidly.

It wasn’t until his brother was standing once more that Dwalin noticed they were very nearly eye to eye. When had that happened? He clearly remembered having to crane his neck to look up at Balin. He remembered being carried, pig-a-back, on Balin’s shoulders. It felt as if the world had suddenly gone all wobbly—as if the sky had turned green or the mountain was made of toffee.

"I hurt you," he said, unable to put into words the very wrongness of it all.

"Not badly," Balin said, sounding as if he was not taking the situation as seriously as he ought to, distracted as he was with righting some of the overturned tarts.

Dwalin stepped back uncertainly, and Balin glanced up when he didn’t respond.

"You’re going to be as big as Adad if you keep up all that growing, so you might as well get used to it, and take care. But if I can offer a piece of advice, brother…"

He smiled blandly and tossed Dwalin one of the tarts. Then he winked.

"…think twice before you rough up anyone who knows where you sleep."

And just like that, Dwalin was once again a tiny bit afraid of his elder brother, and order was restored.


	12. Dwalin & his mother, "Bread", General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written, belatedly, to celebrate [100 followers](http://sam-ptarmigan.tumblr.com/post/96100244596/drabbles) on Tumblr.

When Dwalin is very young, he knows that his mother is the strongest dwarf in the world.

The fact that his father is a warrior means very little to him. Weapons aren’t allowed in the inner household, and Dwalin is still too young to visit the armoury or eat in the hall. As far as he is concerned, being a warrior means you go away during the day and come back with sore feet, grumbling that everyone at court is an idiot.

His mother’s arms are as big as his father’s, but softer and warmer, nicer to be held in. Anything his father can lift, his mother can lift one-handed, cradling Dwalin on her hip as she goes about her work.

Every second afternoon, his mother rolls up her sleeves and makes bread. Dwalin helps, scooping flour into the cup and measuring the salt. He stands on the chair and stirs the water into the bowl until the gloop gets too thick and the spoon won’t move. His mother takes over then, her big hand on top of his, and around and around the spoon goes until there’s a ball of dough to turn out onto the floury table.

_Whap!_  goes the dough when his mother slaps it down. Dwalin bounces on his toes. He likes this part best.

_Whap!_

_Whap!_

The heel of his mother’s hand pushes into the dough, which magically flips around for her to slam onto the table again. It gets smoother and stretchier with each kneading.

"Do you want to try?" she asks him.

He nods emphatically. The dough feels squishy and good when he sinks both hands into it. It’s heavy, but he manages to pick it up and drop it with enough force to send up a few flecks of flour.

"Well done," his mother says, and then she flips the ball of dough effortlessly over her knuckles and whips it down with another satisfying  _whap_.

Afterwards, when the dough is rising in its special bowl near the hearth, his mother carries him to the basin to wash up. She cleans the flour off his hands and off his nose and from behind his ears, and then it’s time for a story and a nap while they wait for the dough to be ready for the oven. The kitchen already smells good, like bread-to-be, and soon enough there will be a snack before suppertime. He always gets the first slice, spread with butter and honey, for being such a good helper.

For now, he cuddles up happily in his mother’s embrace, pillowed against her bosom and held in her strong arms, and cannot imagine being anywhere safer.


End file.
